DOCTOR GEORGE EMORY GOODFELLOW

After being expelled from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis for fighting, George Emery Goodfellow entered Wooster University Medical School.  Sporting a diploma, the young Doctor Goodfellow opened office on the second floor of the Crystal Palace and became known as the "gunfighter´s surgeon" and doctor to the "soiled doves". 

It was Doctor Goodfellow who performed the autopsies on Billy Clanton, and Tom and Frank McLaury after the shoot out at the OK Corral.  It was also Doctor Goodfellow who saved Virgil Earp´s left arm after being shot in an ambush, but unfortunately he could not save the life of Morgan Earp who was shot in the back while playing pool.

It was during a shoot out in 1881 between Luke Short and Charlie Storms that Goodfellow noted the impenetrability of silk to bullets.  In 1887 Doctor Goodfellow wrote an article in the Southern California Practitioner describing three cases he had witnessed where handkerchiefs made from silk stopped bullets.

Seeking adventure in 1886, George Goodfellow joined the hunt for Geronimo who had escaped from the San Carlos Reservation.  When Geronimo surrendered, he was befriended by Doctor Goodfellow.

In 1891 Goodfellow moved to Tucson where he performed what is believed to be the first perineal prostatectomy.  Making medical history was not enough for the good doctor, he wanted adventure, so in 1898 he joined his friend General William Shafter as a volunteer in the Spanish-American War. 

With the help of a bag of booze and the ability to speak Spanish, Goodfellow persuaded a Cuban general to surrender.  For his service he received a commendation for "especially meritorious services professional and military".

The adventurous Doctor Goodfellow died in Los Angeles in 1910 at the age of fifty-four, a short but full life.



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